Paul Merage
Paul Merage is an Iranian-American entrepreneur. He is the founder and the Chairman of Merage Investment Group (MIG), and was CEO and co-founder of Chef America, a privately-held manufacturer of frozen-food products, such as HOT POCKETS.
Paul was born in Tehran, Iran in a Jewish family and immigrated to U.S. early 1960s. He received a B.S. in Economics and a MBA from the University of California, Berkeley.
Paul has over 35 years of experience in consumer products. Following 10 years of management experience with major packaged food companies, Paul founded Chef America, a start up frozen food Company in 1975 along with his brother David. In time Chef America became one of the largest and most profitable privately held food companies in the US. It is best known for Hot Pockets and Lean Pockets. Chef America operated nationally with a workforce of over 2000. Chef America was sold to Nestle in 2002 for $2.6 billion. Paul Merage founded Merage Investment Group (MIG) in 2002 after the sale of Chef America to Nestle. He is highly focused on a mission to “give back to America”. Paul and his family created The Merage Foundation for the American Dream, Children First Foundation, and Foundation for U.S. Israel Trade. These foundations are all aimed at improving quality of life through education. Each foundation has gained positive national and indeed, International attention. Paul is the CEO of the Merage Foundation for the American Dream, and the Merage Foundation for U.S.-Israel Trade.
Merage made a donation to the Merage Jewish Community Center of Orange County, California. Also Paul and the Merage family support a number of other philanthropic efforts. In 2005, Merage donated $30 million to the School of Business at UC Irvine, which was renamed the Paul Merage School of Business in his honor. He is a member of the Paul Merage School of Business Dean’s Advisory Board. He is also chair of the Strategic Communications Committee for the University of California, Irvine Foundation. He serves on the boards of the Orange County Performing Arts Center and the Pacific Symphony. In addition, Mr. Merage is chairman of the board and CEO of Silverpoint Investments, a private equity capital company, chairman of Falcon Investment Management involved in public equity investments and Stoneridge Capital Partners engaged in commercial real estate investments.
Paul Merage is married and he has three children. He has lived in Newport Beach, California, and he now has a home in Englewood, Colorado.
